Egmont eBook

Scene II.—­A Prison

Lighted by a lamp, a couch in the background

Egmont (alone). Old friend! Ever faithful
sleep, dost thou too forsake me, like my other friends?
How wert thou wont of yore to descend unsought upon
my free brow, cooling my temples as with a myrtle wreath
of love! Amidst the din of battle, on the waves
of life, I rested in thine arms, breathing lightly
as a growing boy. When tempests whistled through
the leaves and boughs, when the summits of the lofty
trees swung creaking in the blast, the inmost core
of my heart remained unmoved. What agitates thee
now? What shakes thy firm and steadfast mind?
I feel it, ’tis the sound of the murderous axe,
gnawing at thy root. Yet I stand erect, but an
inward shudder runs through my frame. Yes, it
prevails, this treacherous power; it undermines the
firm, the lofty stem, and ere the bark withers, thy
verdant crown falls crashing to the earth.

Yet wherefore now, thou who hast so often chased the
weightiest cares like bubbles from thy brow, wherefore
canst thou not dissipate this dire foreboding which
incessantly haunts thee in a thousand different shapes?
Since when hast thou trembled at the approach of death,
amid whose varying forms, thou weft wont calmly to
dwell, as with the other shapes of this familiar earth.
But ’tis not he, the sudden foe, to encounter
whom the sound bosom emulously pants;—–­’tis
the dungeon, emblem of the grave, revolting alike
to the hero and the coward. How intolerable I
used to feel it, in the stately hall, girt round by
gloomy walls, when, seated on my cushioned chair,
in the solemn assembly of the princes, questions, which
scarcely required deliberation, were overlaid with
endless discussions, while the rafters of the ceiling
seemed to stifle and oppress me. Then I would
hurry forth as soon as possible, fling myself upon
my horse with deep-drawn breath, and away to the wide
champaign, man’s natural element, where, exhaling
from the earth, nature’s richest treasures are
poured forth around us, while, from the wide heavens,
the stars shed down their blessings through the still
air; where, like earth-born giants, we spring aloft,
invigorated by our Mother’s touch; where our
entire humanity and our human desires throb in every
vein; where the desire to press forward, to vanquish,
to snatch, to use his clenched fist, to possess, to
conquer, glows through the soul of the young hunter;
where the warrior, with rapid stride, assumes his
inborn right to dominion over the world; and, with
terrible liberty, sweeps like a desolating hailstorm
over the field and grove, knowing no boundaries traced
by the hand of man.